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Not really, no.
We went into World War II to beat Japan, who'd just surprise attacked us. Principle had little to do with it, unless "fight back when attacked" is a principle.
If we'd fought WWII on principle, we'd have joined the war in 1939 when Hitler was rampaging through Europe.
But isn't it more of a feeling. A weblog is a personal page run by a single individual (groups of friends belong to Facebook and Myspace). Blogs are not journalists doing there jobs together on a page. We call this news sites...
Beating CNET has nothing todo with blogging. It is a federated group of professional journalist trying to be a media company.
Micheal, you are no blogger...
I do appreciate the fact that blogging and social media do provide interesting new ways for people to get in contact. In particular, the access to people who might not have been been reachable otherwise is a wonderful benefit of social media and Web 2.0.
Mike Arrington does allude to an important point, however: we all have limited attention span and as more and more blogs and venues pop up, there do appear to be small shares of attention span to capture. However, his more pragmatic point is that maybe the VC money is looking for the BIG payoff and the stakes are therefore multiplying.
(Of course, expanding the total blog reading audience might offset that problem...)
Can big money, talent, and hard work kill off a competitor or two? Sure. Is that really a worthwhile accomplishment? It depends. If it's an investment decision, then it might be from that perspective. It's kind of short sighted, though.
I do like your goals, though, based in the acquisition of knowledge and experience.
However, for some people, politics is all they have now. They abandoned principles left and right and so they can only stick to what they now have.
But i wasn't trying to dilute your poignant post... i though i would be an early comment.. hehehe.. but it landed right after yours making me look argumentative... not my intent. But i do stand by my opinion none the less. :)
p.s. great post... mike stirred something up here... hehehe.
Why didn't he say that, if it were the truth? Because it simply doesn't inspire.
But, "we will go to the moon?" That inspires. Listen to John Kennedy's speech again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTyYM-dUgCI
This is such a great speech.
Your desire to be smarter is one that's rare in blogs these days and it's so nice to hear. I rave about Twine because it's made me smarter about all manner of subjects; same with FriendFeed. The problem with a large number of pundits, though, is that they don't want to admit to ignorance on anything. So to compensate, they dash off ranting posts to distract readers from the real issues at hand. Not that I'm pointing any fingers of course. ; )
The US entered WWII when they were attacked directly. The only principle they were defending was the Monroe doctrine.
And when it does get corporatized and turned into a committee-run thing, we all know where to run: FriendFeed.
After that gets corporatized and turned into a committee-run thing, there will be another thing to run off to.
It's the cycle of life on online communities.
Remember, we all once were on AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy! :-)
And even though I've joined up with a professional journalistic brand, Fast Company, I sit here in my house typing to you without an editor, without a committee, without checking whether my post is "OK" or not.
Those are HUGE changes from how CNET's journalists get to work.
Not true. No one has taken away my personal blog or voice, http://www.allthepages.org/, thank you very much.
It is true that there are more kinds of bloggers now, and I've recently been unsubscribing from "pro" bloggers who only publish to meet a schedule w/out actually having anything to say.
See, everyone has editors! :-)
Me? I'm spending more time over on FriendFeed. See you there! :-)
http://www.homeofheroes.com/presidents/speeches...
Sputnik is mentioned in the first sentence. The phrase "Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines" appears right before the bit about reaching the moon in this decade.
I think you should just change your last name to Fisk.
Compiled into the tragedy of the entire story is that the man who brought the world to the edges of their seats did not live to see his vision realized. It goes from motivational to sad. Sadder, yet, when we realize (after honestly thinking about it and not wondering how to strengthen past opinions, but just noodle it outright ... there are clues throughout "...this United States was not built by those who rested...." subtle uses of words like "conquer" to make the russian heads uncomfortable and cleverly using flexible words like "enterprised" to stregthen capitalism... it's all there... heheh ) that it was motivated entirely out of competition. The Russians knew it, kids knew it, parents knew it, the world knew it. Would JFK have been the wise orator we fondly remember today had he been a fear-monger or a fight-picker? Think of the history in this speech:
"We must advance our technology beyond that of the Russians. We will set higher goals than them, unreachable, impossible goals. Then we will accomplish those goals and that will put the Russian war machine at ease for at least a decade or two. We cannot possibly lose this effort now that I called the Russians out directly. If they get there first I have invited the banner of defeat with this honest speech. I wish I had something to the nature of, 'We will do it because it is the right thing to do... not for any other reason... ' Yes, as a matter of fact I should have emphasized that it was for no other reason..."
hehehe.. I'm not sure that speech would be such a hot youtube item... but that would have been the truth.
All that aside, (ironically disagreeing about the moon thing) because: You, Robert Scoble, are what I love about bloggers... I thought i sensed it in Mike's post, too... but I don't know any of you "A-Listers" never met anyone, all i know is what i've read over the years. You, sir, are the most genuine person in the blogosphere... wether you are just really smart and no better than to say stupid, hurtful shit about people for the public record, or you are just generally a decent person... it make's me watch every video you make and read every word of your blog (and god dammit, man, you can type a lot of words.... lol... you owe my employer some $$ i think.)
I'm good at reacting, but I'm better at being proactive. I enjoy challenges that others have not faced - they may not be about conquering the final frontier of space, but facing a real challenge is as big an invigorator/wall as I can ask for.
Give me the choice of a getting to point A across the fields v same old sidewalk and I'll take the field route every time.
Somewhat of an inconsequential topic to discuss/argue about, but here goes :-)
To me, blogging is a) hard to define, b) certainly not defined by anyone at the top of anything, and c) it is what it is.
Meaning that all of us who blog define blogging. It's not something defined by any one group.
It doesn't matter, anyway. Twitter and FriendFeed are doing what blogging used to do and that is give everyday people a voice that can spread.
Blogging has changed - no doubt, and ther is no way you can argue otherwise. And now we can't put the Genie back in the bottle.
Whenever a new technology hits a tipping point you are going to get the crowd effect and the initial vision of the technology changes.
A prime example of this is Microsoft. Do you really think Bill Gates had his "PC on every desk" vision when IBM came calling? I don't believe that public relations crap. He was building developer tools and had to go out and buy an OS to make the Basic sell work with IBM. And the genius of Gates is that once the money started comming in he realized he was in the front of a technology curve that could go way beyond his intial vision and his vision changed.
So, yes, there are now professionals using the blogging technology that use to be so cool and only used by a small community. Isn't that what bloggers wanted in the early years, for blogging to go mainstream? For after all, don't the Pros validate the medium?
The cool thing about blogging and the Internet is that I CHOOSE who I give my attention to. Blogging hasn't changed for me and Robert, if you change the blogging style you use now you'll most likely loose my attention and others, but you might pick up a wholly new audience.
So the blogging community will continue to grow, but we will always have a choice of what community we mull around in.
What I think Mike was trying to say is that many people are getting into the game with lofty goals and that VCs are seeing "blogging" (however you define it) as the "next big thing." Mike sees the dangers in this.
You have the luxury of Seagate following you, because let's be honest, you're unique and you draw an audience of not only niche people but a larger one as well. Me? I'd like to get there, not because I want to kill CNet, but because I feel like I have something to say that noone else is saying right, and that this is the right time, place, and medium.
If anything, many of the "pros" bug me more and more because they sit around taking potshots at each other (*ahem*Valleywag*ahem*) without really focusing on anything interesting. At least you and Michael get inside places I'd love to see, and I can get into places many other people would like to see and talk about them from a unique perspective. If I couldn't do that, I'd keep my damn fool mouth shut because I'd be just another voice.
I do write about what I like. I'm not in it for the money. See any ads? If someone wants to help me out, I'd love it because it would mean I could do what I love. I spend alot more emotional energy at this than I do at my day job sometimes. I'd love for someone to make it easier for me to do what I enjoy. What's so wrong with that?
As for beating C|Net, I think Mike has an OK goal. He thinks enough good voices can bring down what has become a stagnant beast. Again, what's the problem?
I was in school back in 2001-2002. Why should I be held to that standard?
• we went to the moon to beat the Russians.
• in Job's biography he is quotes saying they built the Apple to beat IBM.
• we went to war to beat the Axis powers, most notably Hitler.
I agree with your thoughts on beating Cnet though... Bad focus.
Scobleizer, on the other hand, is a blog and that would be the wrong goal, I agree, requiring way too many resources. Same as other "ego"-blogs like Guy Kawasaki, Fred Wilson, and… Arrington's personal blog.
Jobs is a futurist - he likes to bend the rules and doesn't look to other companies for inspiration. Racing the competition isn't something that makes Apple tick.
Arrington is a bulldog. I mean that in the kindest way. He's pushed, dragged and yanked TechCrunch to the top of the heap. He's the kind of guy that loves to race and win.
If I were at C|Net, I'd be worried.
If you have politics in in some of your blog post - you are probably independent blogger. I will read your stuff if they are interesting. If not - you are media and I don't care about you AT ALL.
Really? I recall it starting a lot earlier than that. There were a bunch of us early bloggers pushing it as a medium long before the money-grubbers decided to "monetize" it.
CMP Media owns DotnetJunkies now and they keep using it to pimp their other web properties, but I'm still on top.
Lawyers at large technology companies should treat the technologists as customers. It's their job to enable innovation, not stifle it.
Thank you.
If the goal of any group or individual is to beat another organization then all you will accomplish is just that. If you don't strive to much much more than just that, then you will collapse as soon as you have accomplished the paltry goal you set yourself to accomlpish.
I left my comment on Arrington's blog. My Spider Sense™ went off because the whole premise of his post was that TOO MUCH MONEY was a PROBLEM. (hmmm.) It did take me a couple of re-reads, but yeah, I eventually figured out his whole goal was to take down CNET, and the "problem" he invented to achieve his goal was that too many other good writers were going off and making independent deals for venture capital.
His post originally generated a lot of positive comments because it was kind of a long and rambling rant, and at first take it seems like some kind of call for cooperation -- let's all work together! we can accomplish more if we cooperate than if we pursue our own separate interests! -- full of positive imagery like a Dream Team of happy, smiling Negro youths.
But then you dig a little bit deeper and you notice that the "fishing trip" boat seems to be decorated with a lot of whale bones and pointy harpoons and there seems to be a lot of what looks like dried blood caked up between the planks on the deck and the Cap'n (despite his being a Quaker) has this crazed, obsessional gleam in his eye and I thought you said this was going to be a fun adventure? And it really turns out to be a three-year trip to Hell via Davy Jones' Locker involving almost no happy, smiling Negro youths whatsoever that makes the lone survivor write a harrowing novel that starts off with "Call me Ishmael."
The other thing that set off my BS detector was the way he was goading people into agreeing with him, telling them that if they went off on their own, they'd have to pay writers "market wages" (oh, the horror), that they might even want, you know, health insurance. And that if they didn't sign up for the Pequod, they'd be left "alone and lonely" (his words), or "stuck out in the cold" (his words) eating thin gruel with all the other landlubbers, "taking life support payments from Federated Media" (his words) and, finally, "generally having an awful time." (his words)
So he's dangling the carrot of UNTOLD RICHES in front of you, while beating you with the stick of NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU on your ass.
The whole thing just drips with desperation, it's the worst kind of "Always Be Closing," used-car salesmanship.
The worst part is that he's not telling you anything about what he offers in return, other than "crushing CNET." He's telling you to give up your $3 - $5 million bird in the hand without even describing the birds in the bush.
The sailors on the Pequod all had equity stakes, too, not that it mattered. To Cap'n Ahabarrington, it isn't about the expected revenue from the whaling expedition, so much as it is about killing that damn'd whale.
Arrrrrrr.
I am simply creating a system which does the things I want - primarily to stay in (asynchronous) contact with my fiancee (on the other side of the planet) and my friends - among other 'social things'
:D
'Web System Symbiosis' is the key imho. :)
I think I said it earlier, YOU CHOOSE the level of engagement and attention you give to any blog.
I actually like Arrington's business attitude. He wants to win and there's nothing wrong with winning as long as it is done on the up and up.
And don't tell me you haven't cashed in on your blogging expertise. Arrington just has a desire for a bigger piece of the pie!
But, yes, I am still chasing the high we had back in 2001, before anyone had any idea this could be a business.
You went into WWII to snatch a piece of the world, when it became clear, that big boys had all been busy fighting in the other hemisphere (2 years into the fight). Which was, indeed, protecting any State's principles. Not that it matters for understanding your post, but your examples are awkward.
It's just "let's beat CNET". And that bugs me for all the same reasons it bugs you. Growing the company, growing the industry, showing off what blogs can do vs the mainstream media, empowering writers... all of those are totally fine, but just to beat a single company?
I'm also having trouble sorting out your argument. Didn't fastcompany also want to try to mpbitize your blog by running "subtle" ads on it?
It'd be like saying today that FriendFeed was rolling before last week. Yeah, there were people using it (I have been watching/using it for quite a few weeks already) but last week is when it got TechCrunched and the numbers started growing. The thing is, FriendFeed isn't where blogging got to in 2004, which is when TechCrunch started up. Then blogging went to millions of blogs. That's when I think it really started "rolling."
And, maybe my reading of history is wrong. So skip over those three sentences.
Kennedy's speech gave it higher purpose. And most of those who participated did it for that higher purpose.
But the funding didn't come from higher purpose... it came from the fact that the Russians just might get there first. If we were so committed to exploration, NASA budgets wouldn't have languished. We'd have a lunar base right now just like the late Arthur C. Clarke imagined.
No corporation has taken blogging away from me or any of my friends. We certainly can do and say whatever we want.
And access? Well, those leaders you allude to may be out out there using community tools, but it does not necessarily mean that they are responding to everyone. You maybe, but not everyone. There is still a velvet rope and always will be. There must otherwise it gets overwhelming. Of course, your point is that it can potentially be easier and faster; that there are direct lines of access. Maybe. Certainly quicker than writing a letter but not always as effective.
Last thing: if Arrington's motivation to beat CNET leads to something worthwhile then what does it matter? No one gets hurt really. And apparently competition gets him out of bed in the morning. And in the end, do you really believe that is his only goal?
I never mentioned celebrity blogs (although thebes gotta be some busines reason wesmircj any ballnug are linked off of techneme) so not sure why you went there. My point is there is a lot of money on the table beyond dweeb blogs.
Ad data setting a goal to be the top dog does this ring a bell? "a computer on every desk and every home running microsoft software" that company was pretty small when they set taut goal
Hate and the need to dominate may offer short bursts of energy or small sparks to light fires, but they can't 'sustain' them. Pettiness and small-thinking have never, as far as I know, led to anything but petty and small outcomes.
In other words, blogging your passion and how to create a self-sufficient community is a lot different from blogging about how you're going to kill the competition. And that it the disconnect between bloggers and corporates, no matter who you work for or what your goals are.
http://sramanamitra.com/2008/03/12/deal-radar-2...
http://sramanamitra.com/2008/03/20/deal-radar-2...
http://sramanamitra.com/2008/03/20/deal-radar-2...
http://sramanamitra.com/2008/03/11/deal-radar-2...
http://sramanamitra.com/2008/03/10/deal-radar-2...
http://sramanamitra.com/2008/03/06/deal-radar-2...
Sramana
Thin on history yet again kid. Don't believe everything you hear in YouTube Kennedy clips.
Buff up on the military uses of space as well.
Seek out "Command of the Commons" to start.
Google up.
If you're a blogger, you can get away with posting your opinions as fact. If you're CNET, then you cannot because you have certain commonly-accepted "journalistic standards." Arrington/TechCrunch wants the best of both worlds, but don't have standards so they hold up the "blogger" label whenever it's convenient for their immediate purpose.
Blogging around the world seems to be (loosely) following the same pattern you described. Most of the spanish-based blogs I read thrive on fun first and foremost, while social and intellectual concerns come next.
However, I think the profesionalization of spanish-based blogging veers away from the pattern: it looks like corporate interest is negative rather than positive and, I think, bloggers as a group are learning from the experiences you describe. If that is true, it's another example of the power of building the systems you point out in item 3.
Finally, I believe that most people and thus most entrerprises (in the sense of embarking in new ventures) don't have clear goals even if they say so. Most of the time initial goals are just attempts to pin down the feelings that motivate us to move into the unknown, not fixed references that define the journey.
To all your final points, I say "YES!" I'm all about building community and having a higher purpose than just making money. I've yet to see a hearse with a U-Haul in-tow behind it.
Wozniak maybe, I'm not convinced that was Jobs motivation. There is a man who competes on every level.
Blogging hasn't lost its way, there's just more of it and like with everything else, the bigger names attract more attention. Livejournal, which is a community, is still thriving.
The average person does't find the need to live the iPhone hugging, Twirling, Seeismic channeled existence that TechCrunch readers crave. They just want a phone that will allow them to text Jason Castro into American Idol rock stardom and a camera that won't screw up their vacation pics. Where do they go? CNET.
TechCrunch can cover the latest and greatest cars or those cool Japanese robots, and every other product that appeals to the kind of person who just has to be the first to have, know and do everything tech. CNET is a different beast entirely. Arrington would either have to create another site entirely (which is not a bad idea) or destroy what makes TechCrunch cool to compete with its mass appeal.
So there's your mission: come up with another site that my 72-year-old dad can frequent when he needs to buy a new digital camera, and then let him know it's out there. I don't even know why Michael Arrington worries about CNET.
http://tinyurl.com/2zo8sv
Tech blogging exploded because it was boosted by laid-off people WITH ACCESS. This is an important point. Laid-off people no longer have a conflict of interest, but they still have a PDA (going back a few years, here) full of contacts, friends they made along the way in the industry. That's a very important point that seems to have been missed. Unless, you have a contact, a friend of a friend, you're not going to get the product demos, or see the term sheets, or confirm a rumor. That's why blogging became professional - the people with access got real stories, and that led to higher page views, which led to higher bandwidth and hosting costs, which led to advertising, which led to hiring staff to maintain the level of information flow needed to generate even higher page views.
The only way blogging will return to the way it was would be another significant bust. Otherwise, it will continue along the current path of becoming traditional media.
And by the way, were you serious when you asked why the government didn't prevent the boom/bust cycle? Private companies, private capital, poor business plans, overspending, poor execution - what does the government have to do with any of that?
You may be right on that point, but we did build Hubble to beat the Moldovan Space Periscope, which would have been able to literally see around the curve of the universe and zoom in on the back of our head. Twice.
With all due respect, you couldn't be more wrong. Conversely if Kennedy had said "Let's go to the Moon, THAT would have been dead on arrival, because people wouldn't have seen the purpose. You have to factor in what was going on in the world. Economically, militarily, socially, we HAD to get there before the Soviets. Otherwise, we would likely still have a wall up in Berlin, among other things. It would have set the US back on a number of levels. Had we not focused on getting to the moon in such a relatively short period of time, I'm guessing today we'd be waiting another 10 years for an iPhone and other technology we take for granted today.
I agree that Beat CNET shouldn't be the only goal. They should have a bigger vision than that. But it is a good internal motto to have to build motivation.
http://techleaders20.blogspot.com/2008/03/micha...
Be that as it may, if their motto has since changed, it's likely because they achieved their original goal in beating GM.
S'funny - really liked your post. The stuff about the evolution of bloggers and the tiered system that has sort of developed over the years.
I hosted a table for bloggers at a recent SpinVox event in the UK and one of the 'bloggers' was slightly put out as she 'normally' got invited along to things as PRESS.
When does a blogger become a journalist?
What typifies and defines 'a' blog?
Stuff I'm kicking around internally at SpinVox HQ and also over at SMSTextNews.com.
The editor there, Ewan Macleod just posted this article about how valuable his time is at CTIA next week.
Thought you might like to read it - raises some interesting points.. similar to (but not the same as) the ones that you talk about.
http://www.smstextnews.com/2008/03/on_blogs_adv...
Cheers,
James.
What, you have a problem with reality? Look up "ford thugs beat workers" and you find:
http://www.hfmgv.org/rouge/history2.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/books/review/...
http://books.google.com/books?id=rpY562-RAzIC&a...
It's not hard to find such things. It's hard to find people who don't idolize the man Hitler credited with creating the ideas behind Nazism (in Mein Kampf if you ever feel like looking it up.)